Nicholas Stuart is a columnist with the Canberra Times.
Nick Stuart has written three books,
Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography;
What Goes Up: Behind the 2007 Election; and
Rudd's Way: November 2007 - June 2010.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

PAY 1 - PAY & ALLOWANCES IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The first blow was late Christmas present.

Some soldiers in the Middle East Area of Operations had their allowances cut.

HMAS Parramatta in the Gulf

I'm not getting involved in the argument about how dangerous it is to be at any particular location - this is simply about the issue of what the cuts to the allowances were all about.

It's in the Canberra Times Defence Supplement . . .

SOLDIERS PAY

“Mate, I’d tell you but you
couldn’t print it.” We are standing at the butts of a firing range in the
Middle East; it’s 35 degrees outside; and the soldier, who’s scheduled to go to
Iraq, is blunt. He snorts dismissively at the government’s 1.5 percent pay
offer. “It’s just crap.” Other diggers who’ve just arrived on deployment join
in. Normally they’re reluctant to discuss controversial issues with journalists
– nobody wants to risk being quoted. But in this case everyone has a view.
Frustration with the government has been growing for months, and these wage
negotiations have been the final straw.

In this case it’s the allowances
for people deployed on operations, rather than the meagre amount contained in
the overall pay offer. The problem is the way the cuts have been structured.
The effect has been to slash payments for those in the Middle East; people at
the sharp end of combat. This has engendered the perception that the
government’s real aim was always simply to cut allowances and save money. The
illogical reality becomes apparent on an induction course for service personnel
being deployed to the Middle East theatre.

The soldiers fly into Al Minhad
Air Base, where they learn features of the latest Improvised Explosive Devices,
fire their weapons, have secret briefings about the latest mutation of the
shifting nature of the insurgency . . . and have a complex lecture on the
different rates of pay, depending on where people happen to be (officially)
based.

The soldiers aren’t impressed. “Compare
our pay to the politicians,” says one. He then quotes – verbatim – an
Australian Strategic Policy Institute analysis. “Politicians got a pay rise of
31 percent in 2012. The Chief [of the Defence Force] got 27 percent. But we
don’t even get to keep up with inflation. It sucks.”

Those going on to deployment in
the war in Iraq are angry for another reason, too. They are over here without
any idea what their conditions might be. “It’s a case of do the job and we’ll
tell you what we’ll pay you for it later,” says an airman. “The war’s being
going for weeks now, but there’s not been a peep on pay. Don’t get me wrong,
nobody’s in it for the money, but it would be nice to know so that we can plan
for Christmas.”

This technician knows he won’t be
at home to celebrate with his family, but is very unhappy he has no idea how
much his service will be worth. More importantly, he’s angry that the
government doesn’t seem to think informing him is a priority. “They’re quick to
cut pay,” he adds, “but they’re a darn sight slower when it comes to giving you
something extra”.

In January, Prime Minister Tony
Abbott went on Sydney radio defending the slashing of allowances for soldiers deployed
overseas. “The nature of service in Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle
East has changed. Until the end of last year a lot of our forces . . . were in
the field, they were engaged in regular combat. And that’s quite different,”
the PM continued, “from the kind of training and support roles that they will
be in this year and subsequently”.

This was, of course, only the
first blow. Adding insult to injury, the government’s now offering service
personnel pay rises of just 1.5 percent per year for each of the next three
years – in return for giving up ‘stand-down’ leave and other allowances. Those
who’ve calculated the difference assert – the Canberra Times has been unable to
confirm the allegations – that, by the time inflation at three percent is taken
into account, they will actually be worse off. *See
News Story to come.

What makes the situation particularly
worse for those deployed overseas, though, is the way cuts have been introduced
for those actually at the pointy end of war.

“There’s no logic or consistency
to any of this,” says an officer who requested to remain anonymous. “It’s
impossible not to conclude that the aim is simply to save money.”

As an example, he refers to sailors
operating in the Gulf on HMAS Toowoomba. Prior to July 1, this operation had
been tax free, but on that date it suddenly, and magically, changed to become non-warlike.
Nothing else altered. In fact recently the ship was busier than ever, engaging
in three contacts with suspected pirates within a week.

“The distinction Defence is
drawing in many cases is completely arbitrary,” he continues. “People doing
similar tasks and living in the same conditions are receiving different pay
depending entirely on where they happen to be based.”

The new pay regime in the
operational area – eventually intended to be a matrix of nine different levels
of pay, depending on the operation and the location – has already become an
administrative nightmare. Anyone travelling on duty, such as the signallers who
have to shift on an almost daily basis to repair radios through the region,
must submit different returns each night to allow their pay to be calculated. Any
savings are being immediately consumed by the increased burden of paperwork.

The change has led to the
completely bizarre situation where some people receive their money tax-free
while others don’t, even though both are posted to exactly the same operation. For
operational reasons the exact details can’t be disclosed, nevertheless the
Canberra Times is now aware of one location where people are working
side-by-side and on the same task, yet on vastly different conditions of
service.

In attempting to claw back money
from some service personnel, the government has inadvertently created a
ridiculous situation. It’s understood that many senior officers – including the
most senior if all – have vigorously protested the cuts. They’ve been, however,
faced with firm edicts from a government that is both struggling to balance the
budget and purchase the latest military hardware. Labor repeatedly put off
decisions about modernising equipment. The coalition is determined to address
such deficiencies. Nevertheless the perception has spread rapidly through the
services that it is doing so at the cost of allowances to those on operations
overseas.

The government has justified its
move on the grounds that many of those deployed in the Middle East are no
longer engaged in combat. Those now on duty correctly point out that previously
only a small minority of soldiers moved “outside the wire”. Additionally, they
insist the burden of being effectively locked inside a small compound for six
months creates significant extra stresses of its own.

Another officer, who’s served previously
in the Middle East, points out the deployment pay hasn’t been indexed. “I got
$200 a day when I came here nearly ten years ago. That’s gone down in value
because of inflation. Now I won’t even get that because they’re slashing my
allowances. And finally they offer us a measly one point five percent pay rise
over the next three years as long as we give up our leave.” He pauses,
scratching his head. “I know why they’re doing it. They want to save money and
they know we aren’t able to complain. We’ve got to just suck it up. Well I’m
angry.”

It’s understood the Chief of the
Defence Force is also unhappy about the way his pay is now fixed to the bosses
of statutory authorities. This saw his pay catapulted less than a year ago,
increasing to more than $800,000 a year. Now he’s being forced to justify
slashing benefits to those on operations as the military becomes more aligned
to the “civilian sector”. He has no choice other than follow the government’s
instruction to slash pay or resign.

Although many of those currently
deployed in, for example, Al Minhad Air Base are not engaged in so-called
“combat operations”, others are. The pay scale does distinguish between someone
loading live weapons onto a Super Hornet in 40-degree heat, and a clerk in an
air-conditioned office – the person pushing the pen get’s more money. The point
is that the assumptions used to calculate pay and allowances are completely
arbitrary.

What sounded like a sensible way
of properly remunerating those facing greater danger has become a joke. The
reality has been the creation of an insupportable administrative burden that
operates seemingly without any rationale. Its only effect has been to destroy
the morale of those on operations.

2 comments:

What a terribly inaccurate article. Do some actual research next time and you'll realise that most of those operational areas have been over classified for the past thirteen years. The people not involved in combat operations have nothing to complain about and should have been paying taxes. And spare a thought for those on operation Paladin and Aslan, they've been operating in harsher conditions than those in AMAB and have been getting less money.

This is a news report - not an opinion piece. You say it's "inaccurate", but then go on to say parts of the MEAO have been "over-classified" for 13 years. That's fine. I accept that. Soldiers on the front line in Afghanistan were complaining about the REMF's at AMAB getting the same amount of them way back in 2011.

Is it worth bothering to say that I didn't receive any extra simply because I flew over Iraq, or went outside the wire in Afghanistan?

I'm not reporting what's "fair" - I'm reporting what the diggers say. And guess what? The UK forces never receive as much as our people did, even those on their equivalents of Paladin and Aslan . . .